As a infrequent IM user I haven’t felt the need to install any Instant Messaging apps to my iPhone. I did try the AIM app so that I could log-in to my iChat account, but uninstalled it soon after knowing I’d rarely use it.

I heard about a free app called fring [link opens iTunes] for the iPhone/iPod touch last Friday, enabling you to make free calls to fellow fringsters or your Skype contacts over wi-fi. You can also access your buddies on MSN® Messenger, Google Talk™, ICQ, Twitter, Yahoo!™ and AIM® via fring. I downloaded it from the iTunes App Store and got it up and running in no time. I made a test call to a Skype contact via fring and the sound quality was great. One thing I have noticed is after adding a new contact on Skype (using the desktop client) it has not updated in fring on my iPhone to show this new buddy. Not quite sure why that is but hopefully it will be addressed in a future update. Not a bug afterall, it turned up in my Fring list today.

Here’s a video showing how fring works on the iPhone.

You may remember me writing a review for the Cyberphone W Mac handset for Skype some weeks back. Our time together was shortlived as unfortunately that piece of hardware started to give my iMac frequent Kernel Panics. It was uninstalled immediately. fring is going perfect for Skype VOIP calls for me now. Great logo too.

Instead of analysing the recent Microsoft adverts and getting into deep fanboy/fangirl territory, I’m instead going to leave it to Daring Fireball to sum it all up because it is an excellent observation.

…the iPhone 3G.

Since buying the iPhone last week I’ve been asked a few questions by people who are considering purchasing but want to know my thoughts on it. I thought the best way to answer these was to put together a collection of these questions along with my answers so I can point them in this direction and hope that my experience and opinions will help them make up their minds.

What’s so different, physically, about the iPhone compared to the iPod touch?
I had never played with an iPhone before but I always expected it was very physically like an iPod touch, only with more features. I didn’t expect the feel of it to be that much different to the ‘touch’. However, I couldn’t ignore some of the things I’d read in Mac magazines over the past year where the article writer would remark how the screen had more clarity on the iPhone and just felt so very different to the iPod touch. I wanted to cover my eyes when I read that as I wanted to believe that the iPod touch was an iPhone without the ‘extras’. But, it most definitely is not just an iPod touch with more features. It’s probably the hardest thing to put into words, but when you hold one and use it then you can feel and see the quality of this. It feels much more robust than an iPod touch.

Why did you go for the 8GB and not the 16GB?
This is just a personal preference, I guess. I’ve never been into listening to music on a portable device and had very few songs on my iPod touch. I have even fewer on my iPhone - 0 to be precise and the earbuds are still wrapped up and untouched in the box! My iPhone will most definitely primarily be a phone to me, aswell as a web browsing/e-mail device and a camera. I don’t have the need for a huge amount of space for music/videos but if you listen to music on the move and like to carry your library around with you then 16GB is probably for you.

Do you wish you’d bought one earlier?
In all honesty, no I don’t. I think I picked a great time to buy when the iPhone software update 2.1 was a mere 24 hours away. I’ve been reading the many comments on how the iPhone was prone to dropped calls, huge back-up and sync times, aswell as causing people to completely restore it on more than one occasion. Those are the very reasons I held off as long as I did. I wanted my first iPhone experience to be as smooth as my Mac experiences and this didn’t disappoint.

What is the battery life like?
On Thursday before the 2.1 update arrived I noticed my battery falling after hardly extreme usage. On Friday when I installed 2.1 I noticed a significant improvement. I made a good few calls, sent text messages, checked e-mail, took photos and generally played around with it and the battery indicator was still on full.

Is 3G signal strong?
This will all depend on your location, but every time I’ve been out and about I have been pretty much on the full 5 bars. At home I have full 3G signal. I first put 3G to good use on Saturday evening when my o2 Broadband was briefly unavailable. The iPhone couldn’t have come at a better time.

What are the back-up and sync times like?
Astonishingly quick. Last night was my first back-up and sync since 2.1 on Friday. I had a few new apps to install and some new photos to sync. The entire back-up and sync process took less than 60 seconds. At first I thought it must have only transferred the photos and not bothered with the apps, but it had. The iPod touch used to take well over half an hour to complete this process, bearing in mind that I was using only approximately 2GB space on an 8GB device.

What’s your favourite iPhone feature?
One of the things I’ve done more than making phonecalls is send SMS messages. I don’t send hundreds per month but it’s often the easiest and most discreet way of contacting friends and family who aren’t in a place that they can hold a voice conversation. And I have to say SMS on the iPhone is just so incredibly pleasurable. I love the iChat look and sound. The way the conversations are laid out makes so much more sense than the way I’ve used text messaging on my past phones. I can see myself sending a lot more texts with the iPhone but I think I’d have to really push myself to get anywhere near the 500 inclusive texts on my £35 per month package.

Of course, I can’t just pick one feature. I also love having a camera on my phone that takes decent quality pictures. GPS is so much fun aswell. I tried this out over the weekend when I was out in the car (I wasn’t driving). I was so blown away by it’s speed at locating me after opening Google Maps and it’s accuracy throughout my journey. I didn’t need to find directions to a particular place but that’s the next thing I intend to throw at it to see whether it gets me to my destination in one piece.

Should I get MobileMe when I buy an iPhone?
If you want an e-mail address and much more that you can access on your iPhone, on your computer(s) and on any computer wherever you are then yes, definitely. I wasn’t an old .Mac subscriber but the features in MobileMe were just what I needed. When you have a couple of Macs and an iPhone (or iPod touch) then you want to have all your data on each, as up to date as possible without docking and syncing. MobileMe does this beautifully over “the cloud”. Gone are the days of docking for one piece of new data. I think £59 per year is well worth it. Aside from it being great for the iPhone I also love how my Safari bookmarks are synced across my iMac and PowerBook. That makes life so much easier and is the ideal accompaniment to the iPhone.

Is the iPhone 3G Dock worth the money?
£19 may sound a lot for a little chunk of plastic, but it’s a beautiful bed for the iPhone. It slides in so smooth. It would have been nice for the dock to have been included in the box when you buy the iPhone, but I personally think it’s well worth the money.

I can’t help but be sickeningly positive about everything. The whole upgrade process with o2 was quick and pain-free. It’s the swiftest handset upgrade I’ve been through, as of course no haggling over the handset cost or tariff was necessary Delivery took less than 24 hours, getting the iPhone out of the box and set up with my SIM was speedy so I could do what I’d been so looking forward to doing and that’s have a damn good play with it.

Yesterday, after months of waiting patiently, I finally upgraded to the iPhone 3G. The phone call to o2 took around 5 minutes - simply asking what iPhone I wanted, what tariff I wished to go on and confirming my phone number and personal details. I called them around 2pm yesterday and it arrived this lunchtime, less than 24 hours later. Did I mention I love o2?

I chose the 8GB model and the £35 per month tariff with 600 minutes, 500 texts, all of which of course come with Unlimited Data and Wi-Fi. The handset cost £99.

Shortly after the Apple Event on Tuesday I listed my iPod touch on Amazon Marketplace and sold it within 30 minutes. Since I got the new replacement a couple of weeks back it’s been pretty much redundant. I played games only occasionally and have never really used the iPod touch to listen to music. It seemed the primary uses were e-mail, social networking apps, calendar and general web browsing. I was starting to want much more from my device, much more than the iPod touch could give me. 

I’ve read blog posts in the past about the iPhone 3G and quite often the author will say what everyone else seems to be saying: it’s amazing, it’s beautiful and wondering how they managed without it. If you were looking for me to say something different and unique then I can’t help you. The iPod touch, in my opinion, doesn’t even begin to come close to the iPhone…and I really didn’t expect that. Obviously not just talking about the features but the feel of it in your hand, the clarity of the screen, the everything.

When the iPhone was announced by o2 last year I was a little concerned about the tariff price, considering that I was on a £15 ‘all-you-can-eat’ tariff. I was firmly in the comfort zone. But, since the announcement of the 3G I have been much less concerned about the monthly cost considering that the handset itself is greatly reduced. £35 per month is fairly standard thesedays for a decent tariff on any phone and I consider the iPhone tariff to be exactly that. It has more than enough inclusive minutes and texts for me.

As yet I haven’t made a single phonecall but I have received a couple and it’s crystal clear, not the slightly tinny/echoey sound I used to get on my o2 XDA Mini S. I have sent out a few SMS, mostly just to gush about it as if I’m the only person in the world who has one. Now that I have the internet at my fingertips wherever I am, I just hope I don’t become one of these people walking around Sainsburys taking a photo of the Fish Finger aisle and posting it to Twitter to show where I am. But somehow I think I will

The feature I was looking forward to the most, after the phone/text, is the camera. I don’t always take my camera out with me unless I’m going out specifically on a photo walk. It’s always during these camera-free times that I see something worth snapping. A beautiful sunset, perhaps. Since I’ll have my iPhone with me all the time when I’m out then I can capture any moment at any time. My XDA Mini S had a 1.3MP camera but was decidedly unhappy with storing more than a couple of full res photos - and they weren’t even all that, anyway.

So, just a few hours after unboxing the iPhone 3G I am totally smitten and have barely stopped looking at it. Now I realise just why my online contacts have been urging me, for so long, to buy one. All I can say is I am glad I finally did.

No, don’t worry, Rafa hasn’t suffered the same fate as Oscar. However, Rafa and I are parting on amicable terms. It is unclear, as yet, whether he will be replaced by his younger more attractive brother, or by his big brother the iPhone 3G. I’m sure that in due course you will know when I do, although we do rather think the big bro’ will be the winner…

Sometimes when I photograph objects, particularly something like my iPod touch which is very shiny, it’s difficult to get the exact results you want without seeing tons of reflections which can easily ruin a shot. I don’t want to buy anything professional like a lightbox for the amount of photography I do, but I’d still like to take some shots and have that plain white background which you see in magazine ads and catalogues.

I happened upon some photography on Flickr which looked like it was taken in a professional studio, when infact the apparatus to help create that shot was just over £5. Today I purchased that apparatus from IKEA, placed a few objects in and took photos. Here are a some of the results.

So, how was this achieved and what exactly are IKEA doing selling photography products, I hear you ask? Well, they don’t. It’s a pop-up laundry bag which acts like a photography tent. It’s perfect and it’s called SKUBB which costs £5.29. I haven’t positioned any lights on it for the above photos, I was just allowing natural daylight coming in through the windows. For the shiny floor I simply placed an A4 sheet of glossy photo paper into the laundry bag, then hooked my digital camera up to my JOBY Gorillapod tripod, set the camera to Super Macro and had fun experimenting. Very pleased with the results which will make photographing small and shiny objects so much easier in future, especially the shiny metal behind of the iPod touch!